{20.07.20} A lot of speculation has swirled around a virology lab in Wuhan, China as ground zero for the outbreak of a novel corona virus that is currently laying waste to mankind around the world. Of course it is tragically obvious that this science based speculation has been seized upon and warped by political opportunists and propagandists at the highest level of government. So you have catchy epithets like 'China flu', 'Kung flu' and 'Wuhan wobblies' floating around the airwaves.
Two authors at Counterpoint propose a theory for the genesis of the novel corona virus. Based on the translation of a Chinese doctor's master thesis, the article reveals the possible genetic origin of SARS-CoV-2. They do not think that the virus was developed as a bio-weapon, but do see a role for viral research in the virus' emergence. They argue their theory explains several puzzling genetic features of the virus such as the affinity of its spike proteins for the human chemical receptor, ACE2. This receptor is found in a number of human cell types from the brain to the intestines, accounting for the ability of the novel virus to impair multiple human organs.
Wuhan became the world's leading research center for bat corona viruses. There are two labs in the city and both have collected and researched these viruses in the past. The lab run by Zheng-li Shi, Wuhan Institute of Virology, collected two viral sequences that are the presumptive ancestors of SARS-CoV-2 from a mine in 2012-13. Six miners contracted a mysterious respiratory illness; three died in 2013. They are described in the master's thesis by a doctor who supervised their treatment. The authors' origin theory is based on these case histories. They also point to what they consider to be the 'questionable' safety record of the Wuhan Institute, now a level four facility. Notably, obtaining level four containment was only begun in 2013 and delayed until 2018.
Virologists generally accept that the nearest relatives of the SARS-CoV-2 virus are found in bats. Presumably, SARS-CoV-2 evolved from an ancestral bat virus. The question is what was the route taken by the virus from the wild to humans? A persuasive study reported in Nature Medicine outlined a path from bats in nature to humans, a "zoonotic" transfer via pangolins. Anderson et al speculate that a viral evolution adopted by SARS-CoV-2 occurred in pangolins from Malaysia and illegally imported in Guangdong province. Wuhan in Hubei province is one thousand kilometers from Guangdong. Anderson discounts the involvement of a lab in the evolution of the novel corona virus, such as "passaging", a process whereby a live virus is exposed to cells for which it is not adapted to speed up virus evolution.
According to the Counterpunch article written by a virologist and a geneticist, there has been a history of lab accidents, disease outbreaks, and even pandemics resulting from accidents with viruses, including SARS. There have been six documented escapes of SARS from labs, not all in China, with some leading to fatalities. H1N1 in 1977 and Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis are both thought to be caused by lab outbreaks. In fact H1N1 may have escaped again in 2009 when a vaccine was improperly activated by its maker. Latham and Wilson say that new research undermines the zoonosis origin theory. The Chinese CDC ruled out the Wuhan "wet market" as the source of the outbreak. Pangolins apparently are not a natural reservoir of corona virus, and bat kidney or lung cells do not replicate SARS-CoV-2. The two virus sequences retrieved from the Mojiang mine closely resemble sequences in the novel corona virus by 98.6 and 96.2% respectively. There is evidence that researchers from the Wuhan Institute made four trips to the mine between August 2012 and July 2013 to collect samples, while some of the miners were still hospitalized by a "severe pneumonia caused by unknown viruses."
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| credit: Nature |
It is known that virus samples were taken from the miners and sent to Kumming University Hospital for their research. Connecting all the data points, the authors propose that the outbreak leading to a pandemic was either a research accident, or caused by passaging in the lab which speeded up the evolution of the collected bat virus into the novel, human killing version now know as SAR-CoV-2. The bat betacorona virus sequence RaTG13, although closely related in structure is still 1200 nucleotides different, which according to one prominent evolutionary biologist, represents 20-50 years of natural evolution. Passaging in the lab could have speeded this process up considerably. This theory is interesting because it does explain many of the unique features of the virus, supported by documented medical evidence. One of the unique features of SARS CoV-2 that allows it to infect humans is the presence of a chemical structure known as a furin site, not present in other closely related corona viruses. The authors posit that high selection pressure in the miners' lungs worked to ensure that the virus became highly adapted to human hosts.
This Mojiang miners hypothesis would also explain the lack of adaptive evolution in the virus genome since the pandemic began. It is well established that viruses which jump species undergo accelerated evolutionary change in the new host; this accelerated adaptation was observed in both SARS and MERS, but has not been observed in SARS-CoV-2, despite infecting many more individuals. Latham and Wilson think, based on the translated documentation, that one of the miners (probably the one who had his thymus removed for examination) was "patient zero". Regrettably, the Wuhan researchers could have anticipated they were dealing with deadly virus samples already highly adapted to human hosts. A small safety error could have directly led to 2019-nCoV (official designation), escape into the human population in 2019.
This potential human alteration in viral evolution through research at Wuhan is controversial and many journalists refuse to pursue this line of inquiry since it might be considered "political", conspiracy theory, or tainted by intelligence misinformation. Certainly the current US regime is using possible Chinese lab involvement in its relentless propaganda attempting to divert its significant role in the skyrocketing infection rate. More investigation into this genetic detective story is waranted. The lab escape hypothesis can only be verified by examining the lab notebooks and safety records of relevant researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, an event unlikely if the Wuhan lab is conducting classified research of national importance.